Lost and Confused
by eighteen inches
Summary: In the moment, neither of them were spies. They were just a boy and a girl who were broken, hurt and emotionally scared. They were nothing to the other, but they were all each other had.


Lost and Confused.

In that moment, she wasn't a spy in training. She was a girl who was more confused than she would like to admit. She didn't know exactly how she felt because all of her feelings muddled together. Was she worried? Angry? Scared? Upset?

The only thing she knew for certain was that she was broken. It was as if a part of her was missing, and perhaps, that was almost true. She had, after all, spent the last three months chasing false leads with her parents and sometimes Zach.

She looked around the room she shared with her two roommates at school and the broken feeling got worse.

_It should be three. Not two._

She should have three roommates, instead of just two.

Suddenly, the room became too small and she couldn't take it anymore. She jumped up from her bed, muttered something to the two girls who shot her questionable looks about needing some air and slipped out of the door.

She slowly worked on getting her breathing back to normal before she passed out, or worse, had a panic attack.

_Get it together, Bex, _she scolded herself. _Baxter's don't act like this. _

She didn't even care where she was going; she just let her feet lead her where they wished. As she walked, the same thoughts she'd had all summer came back to her.

_Why didn't she take me with her? Why didn't she take Zach? Why didn't she take anyone? Why couldn't have she told someone? _

But that was too much to ask for because Morgan's and Cameron's were stubborn. Too stubborn for their own good.

She didn't know where she had ended up, until she almost walked into a wall. She stopped walking and surveyed her surroundings, learning that she was in a narrow corridor near the Hall of History. She quickly glanced around for the light switch on the wall and pulled it. A bookcase slid aside to reveal a secret passageway and she slipped inside.

She followed the dark, narrow corridor until she came to a door where she could hear humming and beeping coming though the wood. She opened the door without knocking and slipped inside.

She took a deep breath as she took in the sight in front of her. The person who lay in the hospital bed, hooked up to machines and covered in bandages was her former Covert Operations teacher.

The boy, who sat in the chair next to the bed, wasn't the guy that was willing to give his life for her best friend, nor was he the spy with the cool indifference who held the answers in the palm of his hand. He was just a boy who looked as sad and pitiful as she felt.

In that moment, they were alike.

She wanted to say something, but didn't know what she _should_ say. It didn't matter because the boy decided to speak.

"He's stable," Zach said, and she could hear the strain in his voice. She knew he wanted more than anything for Joseph Solomon to wake up. She knew he was also looking for something else, _anything_ else to talk about besides what was really pressing on both their minds.

He sat there, staring at her, searching her eyes for hope and reassurance. But she could give him neither. She knew who he wanted and who he was looking for, and she wasn't it. She wasn't the girl with the dishwater blonde hair who had run away from him. From her. From everyone.

"Do you think we'll find her?" She heard someone say and was shocked to learn that it was her. It was a question they'd all been asking for the months (_three months, __four weeks, three days, two hours and five minutes) _since she'd been missing. It was a question that had gone unanswered for so long.

"That's not the question you should be asking yourself," Zach said.

He didn't have to say anything else for Bex to understand what he was talking about. She knew, eventually, that they would find Cammie. But the real question was _would they be too late?_

She didn't want to think like that, but she didn't have many other options. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

"Bex," Zach said, causing her to open her eyes and look at him. His voice sounded weak and sad, which was exactly how she felt. She hated it and she hated _her_ for making them feel that way, for changing them all. "Why didn't she take me with her?"

She didn't respond, because she truly didn't know what to say. She didn't know her best friend anymore and she sure as hell didn't understand her anymore. She just didn't _know_ and it was killing her.

"Why didn't she take _me?"_ she finally said as her voice cracked, but she wasn't sure he'd heard it because she spoke so softly.

She suddenly felt claustrophobia in the small room, and that was something that Rebecca Baxter had never had happen to her. Of all the small places she'd been forced into on the countless missions she went on with her parents, of all the criminals she went up against, she'd never once felt like this.

She felt cornered, defeated, lost, and almost scared. They were all foreign to her and it was all _her_ fault. _Her _leaving caused Bex to feel like this.

"She'll find us," Bex said. "She'll come home." She said it more to convince herself than Zach because she needed it. She needed what little comfort she could manage more than anything.

Zach gave a sad smile and nodded. "She'll come home when she wants to. If she wanted to be found, she would have been found already."

Bex knew he was mostly right. She would return when she wanted to, but only if she was _able_ to return. And the other part didn't reassure her in anyway, because this was the Circle of Cavan they were dealing with. If they wanted to find someone, Bex knew that they would. And that terrified her the most.

"Where did you go?" Bex found herself asking, after a while. She didn't need to add any detail because she knew that Zach would understand what she was talking about. The weeks during the summer when he'd just disappeared.

"I went searching for her," Zach explained. "I even hacked into the CIA's and M16's databases' for _any_ speck of information and I found nothing. When that didn't work out, I went looking for _her_."

Bex knew exactly who he was talking about. His mother. Catherine Goode. The head of the ancient terrorist group who was after her best friend.

"I looked everywhere I thought they might be. I even checked all the safe houses she's ever used. I figured that if I could find my mother, I could find Cammie. It turns out I was wrong," Zach went on. "There's this saying that I've heard before. 'Everything has a way of working out in the end.' I don't really believe in it. But throughout this whole year, it gave me something to hold onto."

Silence filled the space between them, but that wasn't what kept them apart. It was the memory of her, the girl who couldn't stop running away.

Bex soon realized that they'd both been hurt time and time again in their lives, especially throughout this past year. She was suddenly reminded that sometimes what hurts the most is what they cannot see. Sometimes what hurts the most is the loss of those who they thought they knew the most, but didn't know at all.

In that moment, neither of them were spies. They were just a boy and a girl who were broken beyond repair. They were two people, who were hurt and emotionally scared, because of a one girl.

Bex knew how he felt and he knew how she felt. They were united in this, not by choice but by a force of will. They found solace in each other, not because they wanted to; but because they had to. They were nothing to the other, but they were all each other had.

* * *

AN: So as I said before, I was going to try to write for other fandoms besides Harry Potter and I've slowly gotten around to doing just that. This is the first Gallagher Girls fanfiction I've written, so it is obviously the first time I've written Bex and Zach.

As you could tell if you've read the books, this takes place in the very beginning of OSOT and is in Bex's point of view. This is just my take on how Bex was feeling at Cammie running off like she did.

I'd love to know what you thought about this, so please leave a review if you'd like(:

Disclaimer: I don't own the Gallagher Girls, they belong to the amazing Ally Carter.


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